South Florida home prices rise 8.5 percent, index shows

South Florida home prices dipped on a monthly basis in October but remain higher than a year ago, a new report shows.

Although prices in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties fell 0.2 percent compared with September, they still rose 8.5 percent from October 2011, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index released Wednesday.

The annual change is a better indicator of home prices, said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor’s.

Prices rose year over year in 18 of the 20 metro areas tracked by the index. Only Chicago and New York saw decreases. South Florida prices have increased on an annual basis for 10 consecutive months.

“Looking over this report, and considering other data on housing starts and sales, it is clear that the housing recovery is gathering strength,” Blitzer said in a statement.

Ken H. Johnson, a real estate economist and finance professor at Florida International University, agrees that the monthly dip is not cause for concern.

“Interest rates are still at record lows and housing is still more affordable in southeast Florida than at any time over the past decade,” Johnson said. “I’m confident (the recovery) is continuing.”

A shortage of homes for sale in many markets, including South Florida, is helping to boost prices. Some market watchers expect the increases to soften once more foreclosed homes hit the market.

South Florida was one of five metro areas in the Case-Shiller index where monthly prices declined. The others were Atlanta, Dallas, Minneapolis and Seattle.

Local Realtor boards release median prices for homes sold in a month, but many analysts say a better measure of values is Case-Shiller, which tracks prices of the same home over time. The index does not include condominiums and trails Realtor board data by a month.

Last week, the Greater Fort Lauderdale Realtors said Broward County's median price in November was $210,000, a 9 percent increase from a year ago. In Palm Beach County, the median price last month was $219,500, up 20 percent from a year earlier, according to the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches.